Zach Colangelo, Rachel Lloyd & Moose
Shakespeare By the Sea kicks off its summer season with Robin Hood: The Legendary Musical Comedy, which opens on July 5th, 2025 at the Cambridge Battery inside Point Pleasant Park. On July 26th audiences will be treated to As You Like It: The Walkabout Experience, which will be taking place in various locations throughout the park.
I had the chance to sit down with returning Shakespeare By the Sea actors Zach Colangelo and Rachel Lloyd last week to chat about what they are most excited about this season and why they keep coming back to work for this great local theatre company.
Zach Colangelo plays Will Scarlet, the leader of the Merry Men in Robin Hood, Olivia, a female adaptation of the character traditionally known as Oliver, and Jacques in As You Like It. Lloyd plays Sven in Robin Hood, one of the Merry Men, who she describes as “not very smart” and “Swedish.” She is playing Touchstone in As You Like It, as a woman, to a male Audrey.
Colangelo says that when she heard that Shakespeare By the Sea was returning to their walkabout experience concept, for the first time in 21 years, she really wanted to be a part of it. “It adds that layer of immersion, and it also adds that layer of intimacy between us and the audience, which I think is really beautiful,” she says. “Not to mention that when you have a performance space as magical and wonderful as Point Pleasant Park… since my first season I have loved performing in that park. I’ve always felt that there is something sort of magical, [an] unspoken quality in the air that assumes when we are in performance. I think that’s probably tied to the fact that this is Amntu’kati and this is the “gathering place,” and there is such a history of storytelling and community here.” She also says that she’s aware of Shakespeare By the Sea’s long theatrical legacy in this city. She says that folks come up to her after the shows and tell her that they’ve been coming to see shows in the park for upwards of twenty years and that they’ve never missed a summer. “To be but a puzzle piece in that long history of tradition is a privilege. It’s a privilege to think ‘I am one of many cool players who’s gotten to touch this work, and I’ve gotten to be captured by an experience that, really, so few of us have gotten to capture. It’s very special.”
Both Robin Hood and As You Like It will be musical experiences. Eliza Rhinelander who wrote music for Twelfth Night last year returns with twenty pieces for As You Like It. “It’s led by the banjo,” says Colangelo, “it has a full actor-musician core to it this year, as well as several singers, the wonderful Ian Sherwood is largely taking the lead on those vocals and he sounds incredible.” Sherwood learned how to play the banjo specifically for this role.
Lloyd says that it’s apt that As You Like It is going to be performed with the audience walking from location to location within the park because the characters in this play are also travelling. “So to go right into the forest- it’s magical,” she says.
Colangelo says that there is a “suspense of magic in the world of the forest,” and that each of the characters banished to the Arden Forest go through a transformation. “They become a better, more heightened, more finessed version of themselves. They all go into the forest and experience some sort of reckoning and transformation that allows them to be better, fuller versions of themselves. I find that aspect of transformation to be really, really beautiful in this piece, but also really timely and really topical for the zeitgeist that we’re in.” She continues saying, “I think right now we’re living in extremely conflicting and dividing times. I think that if we could collectively, as a body of people, experience a transformation of moving toward kindness and empathy for one another… I hope [this piece] is going to inspire what happens when people find community with each other.”
Lloyd says that there is a connection as well with this idea of the show not being where you expect it to be this summer, not being staged in the way that you’re used to, and thus, audience members are given the opportunity to literally delve deeper into the park. Even for Lloyd, she says that she’s been able to explore places here that she’d never seen before.
“This year it really is Shakespeare by the Sea,” adds Colangelo, alluding to Halifax Harbour, which you can’t see directly over the trees from the Cambridge Battery site. She said that when the company did their first read through of the script for As You Like It, and hearing Rhinelander’s music, she cried. She says that when they did their very first rehearsal on location in the park people were stopping “in their tracks” to watch and listen. “This show has a way of magnetizing people and bringing them in, which is really special. Eliza’s really captured [it]” and “enhances the warmth [of the play],” adds Lloyd. “I think people are going to leave this show just feeling buzzing in their hearts,” says Colangelo.
Rachel Lloyd had previously performed Robin Hood and The Hobbit with Festival Antigonish at Keppoch Mountain, which was organized differently than Shakespeare By the Sea’s Walkabout, but also included audiences moving along with the action in a site-specific experience. Both she and Colangelo know that it takes a certain athleticism and vocal energy for actors to be able to perform for audiences outside. “Until you’re immersed within it and you’re doing it, you really kind of underestimate it,” says Colangelo. “Because of the proximity of the space, you have to be bigger. Everything has to feel big, and can translate to [the] audience who’s sitting five feet away from you as well as 30 feet away from you. Everything must translate so that every person has the same experience. You have to amplify your voice in ways that feel so unlike how you would regularly talk. Being able to sustain that for seven shows a week, it’s a skill that one has to work toward, and one has to really attune. I find it to be a really good challenge… It’s really cool to be asked to do something like this because then when you’re in a theatre space where things could be a little more contained, it allows you as an actor to really test how big your emotional and artistic range [is]… I find that to be really fascinating and ever-changing, depending on the piece that we’re doing.”
This is Colangelo’s third season in a row at Shakespeare By the Sea, and Lloyd played The Cat in Pinocchio and was in Romeo and Juliet back in 2023. Lloyd says that she loves working at Shakespeare By the Sea because of the “community here. How everyone puts in 100%. We just love creating together and being really silly together. I’ve appreciated the freedom in getting to just be silly and to be me with a tight-knit group of people.”
Colangelo says the experience of working here, in the park, by the ocean, is so unique, but also cites how special it is to work with some of the same artists year after year, but also to have folks recognize her while she’s walking her dog, Moose. “To know that your work leaves an impact is something that leaves me coming back here.” She agrees with Lloyd’s point about it being a company where folks have the permission to be themselves and be silly saying, “this is a really fool-safe space to try anything and to be as big and as bold and as unabashed as you want to be. Again, in a world where we are seeing so much division and so much chaos, and so much confusion toward marginalized identities- knowing that I, as a trans woman, have a space where I can come and truly feel like I can be anything, and by virtue of that allow audience members to come and leave our shows feeling the same sense of beauty and abandon, that’s what keeps me coming back.”
Of course, a big part of doing shows like Robin Hood means performing for audiences full of children. Rachel Lloyd says she loves meeting kids at Intermission or after the show because they often come up to her with “big stars in their eyes,” and she says that she was once one of those kids too. “I remember going to dinner theatre and I was like, ‘oh! They said something to me!’” she remembers excitedly. Colangelo says that often for children in Halifax Shakespeare By the Sea is their very first exposure to theatre. She says that she loves the audience interactions, especially from the kids, “knowing that we’ve gotten them to invest their beautiful little souls into everything presently happening in front of them, that’s the ticket. That’s when I know I’ve done my job.” “And keeping theatre alive,” says Lloyd, “we’ve got to keep showing [plays] to young audiences.” “They’re the future,” adds Colangelo.
When they first started their training as actors neither Colangelo nor Lloyd felt an overwhelming connection to the works of Shakespeare or thought they would end up performing in professional productions of these historic plays. Colangelo did one semester of Shakespeare training at college, Lloyd did a year of study at Dalhousie, but also cites coming to see shows at Shakespeare By the Sea when she was in High School as her introduction to the Bard. She says that as a teenager she would encourage her friends to come to the shows and reassure them that, even if they didn’t understand the language at first, “it just takes a little bit [of time]. Then you understand it because the people onstage understand what they’re saying, and are having fun with it. Then you understand.”
Lloyd says that the foundation that she got at Dalhousie set her up well to understand iambic pentameter, and in working with Two Planks’ Artistic Director Ken Schwartz on verse work, “I got excited about it as my journey with it broadened, because the [foundational work] informs the work too, not in a boring way, which is what I thought originally… heightening my understanding does make it more fun.” She says this helped her open up to the multiple possibilities that existed with how to interpret the texts and understand and relate to the characters, which gives her an array of interesting options for how to play each scene.
Colangelo says that when she was cast in Romeo and Juliet she asked Drew Douris-O’Hara what he had been thinking in casting her. “I’ve never done this before,” she says, “I don’t know what I’m doing.” She says as a musical theatre actor she had “imposter syndrome,” but Douris-O’Hara was undeterred and knew what he was doing. He cited the musicality inherent to Shakespeare and encouraged her to trust that she had all the tools she needed to be a success. “I had essentially pigeonholed myself into believing I couldn’t do [Shakespeare], and now I’m doing it for the third time. And I love it.”
Colangelo tells me about an experience she had last summer when they were closing Twelfth Night and a young trans boy reached out to her after the show to thank her saying, “there was so much power in seeing another trans person just take up space.” Colangelo says that for her that’s what’s so powerful about performing for young audiences, that “they can see the full collective breadth of humanity on the stage and… young people can see themselves represented in a way that they never thought was possible.” She notes that this year she is excited to play Will Scarlet in Robin Hood, who experiences love on stage. “I’ve never been granted the opportunity to fall in love with somebody on stage,” she says, “we rarely see that [for trans actors].” She notes that she is being given the opportunity by Shakespeare By the Sea to bring representation to the stage that she didn’t see when she was growing up. “That, to me, is the magic of theatre. If the audiences of tomorrow can continue to come to theatre practice and see that over and over and over again, I believe theatre is in good hands.”
She notes that much of this is made possible by Shakespeare By the Sea’s leadership, and how they encourage the actors to feel safe and empowered being themselves. She also notes that the cast are friends who hang out together outside of rehearsals and shows, and that there is grace and understanding, and most of all care, extended to them when they need it, for whatever reason, making the company a very safe and positive work experience. Lloyd agrees.
“One of the things that I seek as an actor and specifically as somebody who does live in a marginalized body,” says Colangelo, “when you’re doing shows like As You Like It that have been around for hundreds of years, and we’ve seen countless interpretations of [it], when I go to a text that has quite entrenched history I always ask myself: ‘how do we imbue the now’ and ‘how do we imbue the future into this entrenched text?’ How do we do that? And, in my experience, this company… always ensures that the zeitgeist of today is in these pieces.” She cites As You Like It as an example, where the genders are switched, “the way that we’re bringing these facets of love to these characters in a way that hasn’t been explored yet… knowing that the people in this building are committed to theatre that speaks to today is really beautiful and important to me.”
Robin Hood: The Legendary Musical Comedy is a collective creation by the 2005 Shakespeare By the Sea collective with music and lyrics by Kieran MacMillan and Jeremy Hutton. It is directed by Jesse MacLean. It opens July 5th, 2025 and runs in rep with As You Like It until August 30th, 2025. Check this calendar for show dates. Shows are 7:00pm at the Cambridge Battery inside Point Pleasant Park. Tickets range in price from PWYC (Suggestion Donation $20.00) at the Door or Online the Day of the Show (Bring Your Own Chair or a Blanket- or rent one when you arrive), to $34.20 (Tax Included) for a Sweet Seat or $57.00 (Tax Included) for a Sweetest Seat- Tickets are availble here. There are three 1:00pm matinees of Robin Hood, which are PWYC, inside at the Halifax Central Library (5440 Spring Garden Road, Halifax)- August 9th, August 23rd & August 30th.
As You Like It the Walkabout Experience is written by William Shakespeare and adapted and directed by Drew Douris-O’Hara. It opens July 26, 2025 and runs until August 29th, 2025, and runs in rep with Robin Hood. Check this calendar for show dates. Shows are 7:00pm and begin at the Cambridge Battery inside Point Pleasant Park. At each performance SBTS are able to accommodate six individuals on their accessible golf cart for the duration of the performance. To book one of these spots for your performance please email sbtshalifax@gmail.com with the date of your performance and number of individuals who require this service. Tickets range in price from PWYC (Suggestion Donation $20.00) at the Door or Online the Day of the Show (Bring Your Own Chair or a Blanket- or rent one when you arrive), to $34.20 (Tax Included) for a Sweet Seat or $57.00 (Tax Included) for a Sweetest Seat- tickets are available here. There is a 1:00pm matinee, which is PWYC, inside at the Halifax Central Library (5440 Spring Garden Road, Halifax), August 16th, 2025.
The Unrehearsed Romeo and Juliet– a one night only experience where the company learns their own lines, crafts their own costume, and show up to perform in front of an audience with, you guessed it, no rehearsal, is August 31st, 2025 at 7:00pm. All sweet/est seats are sold out- there will be PWYC tickets available on the day of the performance. There’s still lots of space- the show goes ahead rain or shine- last years’ Torrential MacBeth sounds like it was really one for the books!
Shakespeare By the Sea is wheelchair accessible and anyone with accessibility needs can book a ride from the upper parking lot in Point Pleasant Park to the Cambridge Battery venue. Dogs are welcome, and all performances are Relaxed Performances. For more information about accessibility please visit this website or call 902.422.0295 for more information.
